The Polebridge plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
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63° on Nov. 12, 1990, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1933. Next is 57° in 1987.
Polebridge’s center stands about 3,530 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,490 ft to 5,330 ft, a difference of 1,840 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Kintla Peak, about 9,960 ft, 14 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium (gravel, sand, silt), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 3×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Metasiltstone, argillite, quartzite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Quartzite, metasiltstone, argillite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Clay. Age: Middle Eocene to Early Miocene, 20 to 48 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Quartzite, argillite, metasiltstone. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit along the line are not listed.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in Polebridge reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of the North Fork Flathead, the Flathead, the Clark Fork, the Pend Oreille and the Columbia: about 1,150 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Flathead Lake, Lake Pend Oreille, Lake Umatilla and Noxon Rapids Reservoir.
460 miles of the trip are on the Columbia.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Polebridge; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Polebridge has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in August; winter nights fall to about 8° in February. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Polebridge normally reaches 39° and falls to 20°. The record high is 56°, in 1953; the record low −17°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.48 in, fell in 1981.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1933 at Polebridge, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
